Jeff Banister and Joe Maddon entered 2015 with completely different resumes. One was already considered arguably the best manager in baseball. The other, even the most diehard fans had to look up his name to see who he was.
By the end of the season, both men came away looking like the best managers in baseball.
Banister walked away with the 2015 American League Manager of the Year award, while Maddon earned the NL honors in a MLB Network special that aired Tuesday. The Texas Rangers boss bested Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch and Minnesota Twins skipper Paul Molitor for the win. Banister received 17 first-place votes compared to eight for Hinch and two for Molitor.
Here is how the AL voting played out:
Maddon, in his first season as Chicago Cubs manager, defeated Terry Collins of the New York Mets and Mike Matheny of the St. Louis Cardinals. He had 18 first-place votes against nine for Matheny and three for Collins.
Here is how the NL voting played out:
Based on their reputations, it would be hard for Banister and Maddon to be more different. Yet their player-first styles speak volumes for how to manage in the modern era.
Relatively unheralded, Banister was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ bench coach from 2011-14 before taking over as Texas’ manager last winter. With the Rangers winners of an AL-worst 67 games in 2014, Banister led the team to a 21-game improvement on its way to winning the AL West. While Texas was ultimately eliminated lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the division series, Banister’s effect on the clubhouse cannot go understated.
“I like pretty much everything about him,” third baseman Adrian Beltre said in October, per Jean-Jacques Taylor of ESPN.com. “In spring training, the attitude that he had made the players believe in him. He talked about leading us to the World Series then. It doesn’t take long to build trust with a manager. You can tell the way they go about their business and how honest they are when they talk to you.”
Banister is the third Rangers skipper to win the Manager of the Year award, joining Buck Showalter (2004) and Johnny Oates (1996, shared with Joe Torre).
Tom Singer of MLB.com made an interesting point:
Taking over Chicago after establishing himself as the best manager in Tampa Bay Rays history, Maddon may have been the Cubs’ best acquisition in an offseason full of them.
Maddon led the Cubs to a 97-65 record, the third-best record in baseball (and their own division) and a defeat of the Pirates in the NL Wild Card Game. It was Chicago’s first playoff appearance since 2008, as Maddon added a calming presence to an organization that had been in disarray in the pre-Theo Epstein era.
“Just from the very first day of spring training, encouraging us to be ourselves and (telling us to) don’t change the way you play, and him just being a laid-back manager,” Cubs rookie Kris Bryant said, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. “It’s easy to talk to him and just having a lot of young guys on the team, that just breeds success. He brought the best out of me, and a lot of our success was just having him lead the way and keeping us calm and confident, and at the same time, having a lot fun.”
Maddon is the sixth manager in MLB history to win the award at least three times. Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa are the only mangers with four trophies. Overall, Maddon is the fourth Cubs Manager of the Year, joining Jim Frey (1984), Don Zimmer (1989) and Lou Piniella (2008). Adam Jacobi took a bold but correct stance:
While it’s fair to say other managers had a right to the award—Hinch and Matheny would have been perfectly acceptable winners—it’s hard to quibble with how the respective votes went. Maddon arrived in Chicago with massive expectations and exceeded them from the moment he arrived. Banister made his way to Arlington almost anonymously, and now everyone in Texas knows his name.
They may have taken different paths, but both proved themselves more than deserving in 2015.
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